W hen the Sk:n chain of clinics collapsed suddenly last month, my immediate concern was for its excellent and affordable mole-checking service. I have written about it here before and three readers told me those columns resulted directly in the detection and diagnosis of treatable skin cancers. With NHS GP appointments and dermatology referrals so hard to obtain, Sk:n’s closure is a blow.
The search for alternatives led me to the infinitely more advanced mole mapping service at the OneWelbeck Clinic in London. My standard appointment began with consultant dermatologist Hiva Fassihi, who took my history and inspected my moles, freckles and age spots. I then stripped to disposable knickers and was led into a huge AI chamber, where a camera scanned every millimetre of skin until each mark, mole, scar or lesion on my body was identified, enlarged and charted, from most concerning to least.
This took about a minute, and by the time I was dressed again, we had a detailed 3D avatar and map of my body’s surface. In one year’s time, a rescan will be able to detect the tiniest change in the moles. The machine never comes without a human dermatologist, whose expertise and clinical experience are irreplaceable in interpreting its findings (my most problematic mole, as identified by the machine, is unlikely to cause real-life problems), but the machine’s ability to measure, log, chart and document the progress of a minuscule freckle is one of the many reasons all the doctors I kno.
